Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, September 30, 1997

St. Landry communities reflect parish diversity

by Jim Bradshaw

Augusta Plantation, at the very northwestern tip of St. Landry Parish, was owned and operated by August Hamilton de Lesseps from about 1900 to 1905, and was named for his wife, who was Augusta Story. Upon August's death, the plantation was operated until 1910 by an investment company, with his son, Hamilton de Lesseps, as president. The plantation then went into the hands of the Haas Investment Co., with Dr. W.D. Haas of Bunkie at the head. The Augusta sugar factory shut down in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

By 1879, a post office was established at Bayou Current, with Samuel Faulkner as postmaster. When he began operating a ferry at Bayou Rouge, the little settlement became a small trading center. Steamboats could come up Bayou Rouge, and dock at the ferry landing to load and unload trading goods. The Bayou Current Presbyterian Church is still the focal point of this little community on La. Hwy. 105, next to the Atchafalaya River levee. The old church was once on the other side of the levee, and was moved to its present site along the highway.

Beggs is a small community at the intersection of Hwys. 10 and 359, near Washington. One of its early settlers was Stephen Wikoff one of the incorporators of the Opelousas Steamboat Co. in March 1826. The company was given the right to operate steamboats between Plaquemine and Washington.

The town was established in the early 1800s, when a steamboat landing was built on Bayou Boeuf. The landing was directly across the road from Homeplace, Wikoff's home. As a result, the name Wikoff's Landing was the first for the settlement.

On Feb. 1, 1879, the land and the home were sold to William H. Begg. By this time, a road had been opened from Bayou Boeuf to Palmetto. The road ran across a corner of the Begg property, and along it he built a store and cotton gin. When the railroad came through in the 1880s, the depot was named Begg,, which became Begg's by popular usage, and then Beggs.

The post office was closed in the 1930s.

The name Bellevue was applied to a ridge southeast of Opelousas. The name means "beautiful view," and the view from the ridge may be the reason for the name. But old church records show that Simon Bellevue and his descendants lived in the area in the 1700s, so it could have been named for them.

On May 10, 1779, a group of residents of the area petitioned the Spanish government to allow them to cut timber in the area. The petitioned were Louis Lavergne, Charles Comeau, Joseph Bourque, Siliere Sonnier, and Cyril Thibodeau. Their petition was granted under the so called Bellevue Grant, which specified a 1,200-acre tract where they could cut timber.

At Big Cane, the story of the community is the story of Bayou Rouge. In the 1800s, the Big Cane settlement dominated its section of the parish as a center of commerce with boats loading and unloading provisions at its wharves. There was a post office at Big Cane by 1855. With the coming of the railroad in 1882, the importance of water transportation receded, and, with it, the importance of Big Cane.

Several big stores formed a business center for the country for miles around, where plantations stretched out from the bayou. One of the most prominent of these merchants was Leopold Godchaux, who came there as an 18- year-old fresh from Alsace, France. He began as a pack peddler, going from plantation to plantation, eventually putting aside enough money to buy the already established store of Hampton Smith at Big Cane.

The Big Cane Baptist Church is the oldest Baptist Church in the area. It was organized on July 12, 1846. Forty-two whites and six black people formed the congregation.

Big Cane was laid off in lots for a town, but was never incorporated, probably because the railroad passed it by. The community is named for a growth of enormous switch cane that grew in marshy areas around there.

A steamboat named the Black Hawk struck a snag in Bayou Rouge and sank in the bayou near Big Cane about 1890. The story of the Black Hawk, which was never recovered, became almost legendary at Big Cane, and its hull was still sticking out of the water until rotted black remnants were removed about 1940.

Elba was once a railroad stop along Hwy. 105, next to the Atchafalaya River. The remains of an old cotton gin mark where the community once stood.

Goodwood sat alongside the Atchafalaya River just above Melville. There is no sign of the place anymore.

Father Pierre Oscar LeBeau, a Josephite missionary, started the LeBeau mission in 1897. Originally, the settlement was known as Bayou Petite Prairie, from a bayou that winds through the area, but was later renamed for the priest. He built a church, mission and school for African Americans and brought the Sisters of the Holy Family from New Orleans to teach there.

Father LeBeau was transferred to New Orleans in 1909. There was no priest at the place until 1912, when Father Pacifique Roy arrived there. He took care of missions at Melville, Rideau, Morrow and Bayou Current as well. The Sisters of the Holy Family left the school in 1912, after their convent burned down. Father John Mulkeen, who succeeded Father Roy, convinced Holy Ghost Sisters from San Antonio to come to the school in 1928.

The parish school burned to the ground in 1943 and was replaced by a building made of cement and concrete blocks. The St. Mary's Catholic Church there was dedicated Dec. 13, 1954.

Abram Richard was probably the first to settle in the LeMoyen area, establishing what would become a large plantation there in the middle 1800s. He sold the plantation in 1917 to R.C. Andrews, who was from California, and a railroad man from Natchitoches named Casperi. They bought the land in the name of Andrews & Casperi and Andrews renamed the place LeMoyen after the town in California.

The Turner Lumber Co. established a sawmill at LeMoyen in 1930, shipping hardwood -- oak, gum, ash, and cypress -- across the United States. The railroad depot was originally named Richard, but was later changed to LeMoyen.

Charles Bourque, the grandson of Léandre, was able to get back much of the land and established a store at Lewisburg in 1892. The railroad came through the community in 1906.

In 1882, Morrow gave a strip of land 100 feet wide to the Texas and Pacific Railroad Co., and the depot was named for him, Morrow Station. The railroad divided the Morrow property in half.

Once a year, Morrow went by steamboat to New Orleans and returned with barrels of whiskey and supplies for the commissary. The first public school opened at Morrow in 1897.

Morrow died April 16, 1924, and is buried in the Catholic cemetery near the site of his early home.

Pierre Gabriel Wartelle, a member of Napoleon's Grand Army, came to St. Landry Parish about 1820, married Louisa King, daughter of Judge George King, and they acquired a large plantation at Moundville.

The settlement once known as Nuba sat at the intersection of Hwys.10 and 182, midway between Opelousas and Washington.

One of the Gradenigo sons, Antonio, was sent to Europe for his education, but ran away in 1798 to join Napoleon's army in Egypt. He was never heard from again.

Father Michel Barriere, who was the priest at Opelousas for many years, noted in 1796 in the St. Landry Church records: "All the persons mentioned in this book under the name of Gradenigo belong to the same family, namely the family of the same name in the Senate of Venice. This Don Juan de Gradenigo is the brother of Ambassadors, Senators, and others, in particular of the V. Rev .... Gradenigo, Canon of St. Mark, Venice, who died seven or eight years ago. This is a fact absolutely beyond doubt, as my brother, who kept up a correspondence with Venice, used to serve as intermediary, sending me the letters which I handed to Don Juan de Gradenigo. In 1356 one Juan Gradenigo was Doge of Venice.

"The worthy gentleman who traveled through all Europe and the two Americas," Barriere's note continues, "and, having come finally to Mobile, as he became enamoured with the virtues and charms of Miss Kraps (sic), of a German family, married her at Mobile and remained in this country. The Rev. Martin Duralde and myself were his intimate friends; still we never attempted to pry into the mystery of his emigration to Louisiana. He died here and was buried the first of March, 1809."

The first actual bank in St. Landry Parish was located at the home of Lastie Dupre in Prairie Ronde. This was a private brick vault where the wealthy planter accommodated his many friends by allowing them to place their bags of money for safekeeping. The little brick building is still standing in the yard of a private home.

Gen. Napoleon Robin arrived in the United States shortly after Napoleon's exile and settled first at St. Louis. He came to St. Landry Parish later and settled below Leonville on Bayou Teche.

This community may also have been named for Dr. Francois Robin, the pioneer doctor of St. Landry Parish who had been sent by French colonial authorities as the official doctor of the Poste des Opelousas.

His descendant, Francois Robin, planted a large tract near Leonville.

Biographer and historian William Henry Perrin tells us of the second Francois: " Francois and Eleonore (Stelley) Robin are both natives of St. Landry. Francois Robin is still living (in 1891) and resides with his son ... being nearly eighty years of age. He was before the war a merchant of Grand Coteau, since which time he has been engaged in planting interests on the Bayou Teche, where he owns a tract of seven thousand acres of land, as fine a piece as can be found in this section. He has served on the police jury, represented his parish in the legislature, and held other important positions of trust."

Another of the large landowners of the area was Dan Hudspeth, who came to Rosa about the time of the Civil War. By the turn of the century, the Hudspeth family planted more than 1,000 acres and operated a syrup mill and a cotton gin.

Dan Hudspeth's son, Ned built the original commissary at Rosa about 1900 and replaced it when it burned in 1918.

Reed says that Wauksha is an Indian word that means "fox."

According to one story, the post office was named for the nice home of a Dr. Milburn, which was painted white.

There is also a White's Chapel nearby, built in 1894 and named in honor of Rev. Frederick White, who organized the United Methodist congregation there in 1870.